We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
He had already released four LPs….the last two critically acclaimed and filled with great songs. But he hadn’t put it all together and reached #1 in America. That would change for Elton John in 1972 with the release of Honky Chateau.
This album, was the also the first time that his touring band was allowed to contribute in a meaningful way in the studio. Dee Murray (bass), Nigel Olsson (drums) and Davey Johnstone (guitars) and played a bit on “Madman Across the Water”, but it was this album that they were the core band and began a stretch of seven straight LPs that used a signature sound to top the charts.
Johnstone, who was invited to join the band on a permanent basis during the recording of this record, delivers all kinds of goodness on almost every stringed instrument you can think of. Check out “Slave” which features both steel guitar and banjo.
The album was recorded at an 18th century mansion in the south of France. On most of these tracks Bernie Taupin would bring John the lyrics and the gifted musician would quickly craft a tune to fit.
The hits are here…the jaunty “Honky Cat” which was all over the radio in 72…and the beautiful, wistful ‘Rocket Man”, which, to strangle the analogy, took John into the stratosphere.
There are other pleasures…the satirical look at suicide in “I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself”, which you might even call ebullient. The gospel inflected “Salvation”…the love song “Amy” which includes a guest stint from Jean-Luc Ponty on electric violin. “Hercules” gives you a 50’s vibe…something he would revisit, of course, on Crocodile Rock later in the year.
And there is the beautiful, enigmatic “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”, a dark ode to the New York City of the time.
It’s a solid LP. The critics dug it…and the fans bought it. And the sound that Murray, Olsson, Johnstone and John were able to master…along with Taupin’s outstanding lyrics…were a formula for the massive success that would follow.
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